Hell in a Cell (2012)
Hell in a Cell (2012) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by WWE. It was held on October 28, 2012 at Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. It was the fourth annual Hell in a Cell event. The event drew a total of 199,000 buys, which is an improvement over the previous year's event which drew 182,000 buys. Production Background The lead up to the event featured a tag team tournament to decide the number one contenders for the WWE Tag Team Championship. Storylines The professional wrestling matches at Hell in a Cell featured professional wrestlers performing as characters in scripted events pre-determined by the hosting promotion, WWE. Storylines between the characters played out on WWE's primary television programs, Raw and SmackDown. The main program involved CM Punk defending his WWE Championship against Ryback, contested inside Hell in a Cell. At Night of Champions the previous month, CM Punk and John Cena fought each other to a draw when Cena left his shoulders down while pinning Punk, making it a double pin. Following this, he continuously challenged Punk to a rematch, even while recovering from an arm surgery earlier in the month; Punk refused to accept. All the while Ryback, who was undefeated since re-entering WWE in April (not including his time as the character Skip Sheffield), had attempted to confront Punk with Punk usually escaping. This culminated on an episode of Raw where WWE Chairman Vince McMahon arrived and forced Punk to choose whether he wanted to face John Cena or Ryback. However, when Punk took too long to decide, with Cena's endorsement, McMahon made the decision for it to be Ryback. It was announced that it would be a Hell in a Cell match. At Night of Champions, Layla was originally set to defend the WWE Divas Championship against Kaitlyn, but at the event, Kaitlyn was attacked by a villainess in a masked disguise. Eve Torres replaced Kaitlyn and defeated Layla to capture the Divas Championship, and after Eve's successful defenses against Kaitlyn and Layla on back-to-back editions of Raw, Aksana was revealed as Kaitlyn's attacker on the October 26 edition of SmackDown, committing the attack under Eve's orders. It was later announced that Eve would defend the Divas Championship at Hell in a Cell in a Triple Threat Match. Aftermath Maddox explained on Raw that he had intentionally cost Ryback the match as a way of making a name for himself and 'becoming famous' after he had been told that he would never achieve his initial dream of becoming a WWE Superstar. Maddox then demanded a WWE contract and a match with Ryback; Mr. McMahon sarcastically replied that Maddox would be given a 'million dollar contract' if he was able to beat Ryback. The match took place the following week, with Maddox being defeated in a squash match and leaving the arena in an ambulance. Ryback then continued his feud with CM Punk, and went on to challenge for the title once again at Survivor Series in a triple threat match with John Cena. It was later revealed on an episode of Raw that Paul Heyman had paid Brad Maddox to make an interference in the match and help CM Punk retain the title. Results Other on-screen personnel See also * List of WWE pay-per-view events * Hell in a Cell